


Hanahaki

by chocochurros



Category: Original Work
Genre: Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-01-31 18:58:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12688254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chocochurros/pseuds/chocochurros
Summary: The poem that saved my life (read my narrative, _Awkward Teenagers_, if you're curious how).





	Hanahaki

At first, it just seemed like normal.

The painful, yet blissful - constricting, yet rising - shrinking, yet swelling - tightening in my throat, in my chest. 

That same ball of unspoken words and fumbled flirts that appears there whenever I think of you.

\- You, with your damned smile; you, with your smiling eyes, with the smile always for someone else; you, with your glowing hair; you, so close, yet so far away.

And I was looking at you - you, _you, *you*_ - when the feeling came. The raw, squeezing bitterness, tying my throat into knots - like usual, yet more. It was like I couldn’t breathe - beyond, of course, how you always take my breath away.

And then it happened. A single, solitary blossom escaped, expelled from my chest in a cough. Before I could think _how_ or _why_, I’d caught it, its tender petals lying delicately in my imperfect hand. It was so beautiful, so like a jewel. How could something so wonderful have come from _me_, and now be held by something so mortal and undeserving as I?

And then the tightness swelled again, squeezing my throat once more until another cough, another flower - blue with silver-streaked petals - came; and another, and another. My hands were a fairy’s bouquet, a florist’s wildest dream. Blooms of every dewy hue seemed to glow like multi-colored coals, like dragon hearts, like phoenix eggs. Such was the myth that shrouded them, the surreality. It seemed an ancient legend being told - _re_told - before my very eyes.

And then the beautiful, _beautiful_ jewels - the dazzling emeralds, the ocean-deep-cut sapphires, the blood-red rubies, all impossibly refracting so much light with their glowing, glossy petals - began to turn to ash. To wilt, to die, to disintegrate, before my very eyes. One corner at a time. One flower, two flowers, four flowers, seven, ten, twenty - gone. Evaporated as if they’d never been. Like a dream. The tightness spat out one more - lily-white - and then let me alone.

I held it gingerly, in awe, with the care one would have for a robin’s egg, before my eyes refocused. Only one thing, as far as I was concerned, could be so beautiful as the pearly sheen of the miracle before me; and that thing was you. Standing nearby, laughing. Your bewitching, musical, waterfall laugh, for someone else, echoing through my poor, defenseless skull; it mesmerized me. Ensnared me. Drew me towards you in a trance, each step tightening the squeeze in my throat, until I reached your side. Ten steps seemed fifty, and yet I could not reach you fast enough.

Without a thought, my arm lifted, as though by the string of a puppeteer; the flower brought before your holy gaze. And no matter how beautiful the petals were, they could not match your angel’s eyes.  
A little, “oh!” and a smile - oh, that smile! That smile carried me on angelic wings, made my giddy steps like feather kisses as it carried me so high - as you took my humble offering, eyes twinkling stars; nay, brighter still.

And, like a dream, the moment passed. I was back within the safe confines of my chair -   
Yet I saw, from afar - and yet, closeby - the flower tucked in your shining, silky hair.

Though happy -(I thought)-, a nagging sprite remained to taint my thoughts -   
I knew that, while my gift had pleased you, still you loved me not.

The tightness suddenly came again, and came full-force, making me hack and hack again;  
Hack out raining flowers so beautiful I knew they were not mine.

Again, again, they came and came, and I knew they were for you -   
But I stayed behind, alone in shadow, content to see this through.

I didn’t deserve to bother you, to taint your happy day;  
So I stayed and hacked and hacked, with tears of joy, glad that I was to stay.

The light began to fade in me as the flowers ceased to come;  
I couldn’t breathe, air stuck half-way, as they clumped one by one.

My lungs were filled with beauty;   
I fell, unnoticed, to the ground.  
I was closer to you than I could ever hope to deserve;  
Flowers spilling out, I closed my eyes and heart and throat, my conscience sound.


End file.
